First of all, that sucks about your surgery. Glad I've never had one and I hope I never have to.

I'm not invalidating your experience. It's just that coming from a guy who did most of the stuff you did before, I have found something better and much more efficient. Again. Comparison is like someone who has trained with the likes of Bart Vale, etc. compared to how BJJ has evolved nowadays.

On a side note - have you tried a chiropractor before just to alighn your skeleton properly? Been having knee problems since I got back doing BJJ and chiro fixed me. Told me real problem was hip alignment that causes stress to the knees and not necessarily weak knees. It's been a month and the knees never bugged me again.

I am sorry to hear about your injuries. What would you have done differently to avoid this situation?

Best,

Marc

I never had an "event". It seems to be genetic as my brother has had several knee surgeries as well. I did hospital maintanence for 11 years before I got into being an instructor. I didn't have an event there either. It seems just like a slow onset of genetic stuff. I started feeling it about 8 years ago when I would kneel down to tie my shoe. Seems like the surgeries make it better for a while and then actually make it worse (because of cartilige removal)...???

Regarding the weapons debate, I think a lot of it has more to do with blade tactics vs. blunt weapon tactics. In my training we differentiate between the two whereas many weapons practitioners tend to blur the lines.

With impact weapons, you can often see people shooting for takedowns, crashing into clinch range, and displaying what we would call the "charger" fighter type. This is mainly because with sticks and such it's not as big of a deal to "take a shot." You often see guys absorb a shot to the thigh so they can get a better head shot or a guy take a hit across the forearm in order to get inside and clinch. This game has some validity I suppose because the tactics that are being used only match the given situation.

Blade fighting on the other hand ends up being different. The sharp edges of long blades (machetes for example) create a bubble so to speak. In real blade exchanges when both people have blades you don't see a lot of crashing, shooting in, clinching because nobody wants to get cut. The consequences of "taking a shot" in this case are much more severe. To me this is the difference between Siciliano's video and Demi's video. Kalis Ilustrisimo is primarily a blade system. The two fighters aren't being cooperative, they are just being prudent as any shot that overcommits, telegraphs, and/or ignores the opponents blade arm will definitely get you cut. In Atienza Kali we use the term "double kill" when describing these tactics in a blade fight. Guys think they are in a stick fight and they jump inside reactionary gap for a head shot or they think they're being cleaver and they go for the leg. Usually they tend to either get easily countered by the more conservative fighter or the exchange ends up in a double kill (they may get the head shot but they also get hit in the head or body). These are not the kind of tactics we want to train. In blade fighting the entry is more important than the knockout shot. I think this is why you see so many short parries and hand targeting in Siciliano's clip. We use these tactics in stick fighting too but I recognize that many don't because they feel they don't need to.

"""The consequences of "taking a shot" in this case are much more severe."""

As Frankl pointed out earlier in some post somewhere - Much of this has turned into "dueling" and NOT combat.

If you were sqaured off against one guy and TWO OTHERS were going after you wife you would have to "take a shot" or SOMETHING to dispatch your opponent and then attempt to address her situation.

In the complex reality of interpersonal combat we should not LOWER the dynamics to:

It's "him with a machete and me with a machete" and we have all the room and time in the world to "out-think eachother - counter eachotrher or otherwise use fulcrums or entries etc.

In reality, in the hallways of our homes, with multiple attackers at 2AM, as they move toward various bedrooms at the same time - consideration must be given to "almost sacrificial tactics" if we are to "attempt" to be prepared for "violence as it pours forth from goal oriented individuals" when we are at our most vulnerable and under body alarm condition and even already injured.

I would not call that situational combat. That was a demonstartion at best (in my opinion).

Both of those clips do remind me of the reverence that people give the ones that came before them. The masters. All traditional martial arts have a heavy bent towrds reverence of the MASTER.

But I think over the past decade we have moved from that sort of thing and have become interested in the immediacy of effectiveness. The fact that one person is wearing ahelmet and the other is not says to me that YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO HIT THE OTHER GUY IN THE HEAD but he can knock your head.

I appreciate where you are coming from with your love of that art. I just see things differently and I'm trying to convince you of my point. I'm just sharing it with you.

Re the sparring clip, I don't think you know who Christopher Ricketts is. LOL. Ask anyone he has sparred against. That guy goes hard. He was just totallyu outclassed. It's just that the concept of headgear was totally alien to Tatang that's why he doesn't want to wear it. He's not used to it. They're training with padded sticks so that's really nothing to the old man.

I have one Canadian guy (via Japan) who had no interest in being certified etc...

I don't train anymore at all. I have too many physical limitations/injuries. Everything from arthritis in my hands to needing a knee replacement in one knee, a clean up surgery in the other knee, an elbow siurgery and my hips/gate going out from all the knee stuff (6 knee surgeries over the years)...

Ahhh, but the tales I could tell... The Dept. Of Homeland Security still offers me work I cannot take (ethically).

I actually do not have any interest in "training". BUT, I do like to help others when I can in the course of their training.

In my opinion, what better way to test out your system but aliveness as the "aliveness" crew always claim. Sparring. This is not a challenge, but I'll go with anyone. We can use padded sticks, armor, etc.

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